Readers Are Leaders!!!!

My Students

My 5th grade classroom is a truly wonderful place to be. I have the pleasure of working with two classes full of children who are unique in so many different ways. My job is to find the gift that each of them has within themselves and help that gift to grow.

My students are very diverse.

We have many different nationalities, languages, religions, races, abilities, home types, and even special needs represented within our classroom. Sometimes it can be challenging to blend it all together, but we try to think of our classroom as a small example of what America is like! We're a melting pot! We also work on leadership skills in our school. We believe that every child has the ability to be a leader and that it is important for our students to be prepared for life in the real world. To that end, we teach our students to be proactive and seek out solutions to problems, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek first to understand-then to be understood, synnergyze, and finally to sharpen the saw. This year, we have been presented with a lovely new challenge! One of our students has a severe vision handicap. As we work to become a unified class, having materials to work with together is critical.

My Project

My students will use this collection of books as they explore new ideas, read for pleasure, improve fluency, practice reading comprehension skills, and master vocabulary. Many of the books requested are large print versions of books that are currently in the classroom. Currently when one of my students cannot see a text adequately, she has to use a magnifying glass. This is embarrassing to her. Having large print books will make it easy for our students to be inclusive and read together. It also offers the opportunity for our vision impaired student to read aloud to others during paired reading times and practice fluency with books that are grade-level appropriate and of interest. Books are always a wonderful way to add new ideas and information to a classroom and ours is no exception. Many of our students cannot afford to purchase books and so the classroom library is very well used. My students check out books constantly and are sure to love these new additions to our classroom.

Your donation to our project will help our classroom in so many ways.

We need a lot of help this year. My kids are starting with the end in mind! We need to help our new friend with her reading. Your donation will help us to be readers as well as leaders as we put first things first and make sure that everyone in our class is taken care of!